h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7072241.stm

"Four police forces have been ordered to delete criminal records dating back decades because they are "no longer relevant"."

"The individuals complained to the commissioner after their history showed up in checks when they went for jobs....The record held by Humberside Police related to the theft of a packet of meat, worth 99p, back in 1984 when the complainant was aged 16."

What is the general view on this? I tend to agree that for teenage petty stuff they should be deleted. For more serious teenage crimes possibly not.

Of course, we do have Blicky who has admitted on the site to his nefarious past. If you are reading this Blicky, I cannot remember if you were caught etc but, in general, would it has it affected our employment possibilities. I do know you are in a fine social orientated job so it couldn't have affected things much if you did get a record. Hope you don't mind me mentioning you specifically as you have spoken about this general subject before on house-owner self-defence etc.

Definitely, unless it leads to more serious stuff teenage petty crime should be deleted after a certain amount of time.

I tell prospective and have told my present employers about all my convictions and stored records at the interview stage to save them and myself time.

I do have convictions for criminal damage and theft but as they sentences passed down when I was 14 they have either been wiped or not seen as relevant to CRB checks at my level because they are not recorded on the copy of the check the CRB people send to me.

What does show up on my files are allegations that I was never prosecuted or even questioned by the police over which were made a couple of years ago.

I can see why those wont get wiped. Im actually really pissed off that the police thought that while the alleged incident didnt merit investigation they still keep a record of it instead of investigating to see if the allegation was substantial or not. They never even interviewed me, its just on my record for life.

So given the previous history of Ian Huntley I can accept that there is something that is relevant, but when it can affect someones life and work I think that it should be upto the police to thouroghly investigate things in the first place. If it isnt investigated properly you can end up with cases like the Soham murders.

What's the point in storing things up and waiting for a snowball effect?

The relevance is inmportant, the allegation against me is *highly* relevant to my post but the substance is way more important and this should be the police's focus. The information held and those who want it wiped should stop worrying if it's not true it shouldnt be able to hurt you but that is only true if the information is rigourously sourced as things stand its not so there will be relevant and irrelevant information lost.

No one is a winner here expect people who have things to hide.

one love

Thanks.

I think the longer someone goes without a prosecution and/or conviction, the larger the chunk of previous records that should be removed. So, five years without a conviction warrants removal of five oldest years, ten years clean warrants removal of 20 oldest years. Increasing rewards for increasing continous time out of trouble.

The guy from the Midlands had been found guilty of using disks in arcade machines - 30 years ago.

C'mon folks - relevence is all, unless they have a string of convictions they should delete them - I can see no reason for keeping misdemeanours longer than 5 years.